Blackwater Scandal or Blackwater doing its job?

from Blackwater ‘just doing its job’ to Blackwater ‘mishaps occurred’ to Blackwater ‘controversy brewing’ to Blackwater ‘Scandal’?

Given what we’ve heard from the media about Blackwater’s role in Iraq, you’d think that Blackwater would not only be reprimanded, but denied their contract altogether.

The problem has become more complicated amidst recent allegations. The U.S. government was allegedly involved in helping to disguise (cover up) some Blackwater murders and abuses of authority on Blackwater’s part. This is not the first time allegations have been levied against Blackwater. It is, however, the first time that the U.S. government is charged with helping to hide serious crimes that have occurred in Iraq.

Over the last week, I’ve read a number of articles alleging anything from ‘innocent errors’ to common mistakes and now controversial and possibly scandalous activity. Blackwater’s alleged reckless and murderous activity in Iraq is defended by their CEO as “doing the job they were hired to do”. Yet, for whatever reason, the White House has found it necessary to intervene in a number of cases that have found Blackwater at the heart of ‘controversy’ in Iraq.

The excerpt below discussses recent Blackwater developments:

When Blackwater contractors guarding a U.S. State Department convoy allegedly killed 11 unarmed Iraqi civilians on Sept. 16, it was only the latest in a series of controversial shooting incidents associated with the private security firm. Blackwater has a reputation for being quick on the draw. Since 2005, the North Carolina-based company, which has about 1,000 contractors in Iraq, has reported 195 “escalation of force incidents”; in 163 of those cases Blackwater guns fired first. According to the New York Times, Blackwater guards were twice as likely as employees of two other firms protecting State Department personnel in Iraq to be involved in shooting incidents.

On Tuesday morning, Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, will hold a hearing on the U.S. military’s use of private contractors. When Waxman announced plans for the hearing last week, the State Department directed Blackwater not to give any information or testimony without its signoff. After a public spat between Rep. Waxman and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice,the State Department relented. Blackwater CEO and founder Erik Prince is now scheduled to testify at 10 a.m. Tuesday.

But the attempt to shield Prince was apparently not the first time State had protected Blackwater. A report issued by Waxman on Monday alleges that State helped Blackwater cover up Iraqi fatalities. In December 2006, State arranged for the company to pay $15,000 to the family of an Iraqi guard who was shot and killed by a drunken Blackwater employee. In another shooting death, the payment was $5,000. As CNN reported Monday, the State Department also allowed a Blackwater employee to write State’s initial “spot report” on the Sept. 16 shooting incident — a report that did not mention civilian casualties and claimed contractors were responding to an insurgent attack on a convoy.

The ties between State and Blackwater are only part of a web of relationships that Blackwater has maintained with the Bush administration and with prominent Republicans. From 2001 to 2007, the firm has increased its annual federal contracts from less than $1 million to more than $500 million, all while employees passed through a turnstile between Blackwater and the administration, several leaving important posts in the Pentagon and the CIA to take jobs at the security company. Below is a list of some of Blackwater’s luminaries with their professional — and political — résumés.

Read the entire “Bush and Blackwater” article at Salon.com

As if the political intrigue wasn’t bad enough, Blackwater was instructed to withhold information until the Senate decided to press the issue! The command to withhold information until reviewed by the U.S. State Department is going to raise eyebrowse in Washington. For the record, Condoleeza Rice was the ‘decider’ on this matter.

Until proven otherwise, however, the U.S. government was not involved in ongoing affairs of private contractors in Iraq and special favors and lucrative contracts haven’t been assigned to political allies in the private sector. Blackwater’s ‘mishaps’ that have occurred at twice the rate of other contractors are simply a coincidence and not a license to kill.

Yet, if recent allegations are found true about Blackwater’s activity, cover-ups, and strong ties to the Republican party, we’re looking at some serious conflicts of interest.

Ethics? Who needs them.

Fred Soto is an Attorney and Entrepreneur from the Silicon Valley.
Email this author | All posts by Fred Soto